Should we allow AI into the classroom?
Tech Life
BBC
4.4 • 221 Ratings
🗓️ 25 November 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Does AI have a role in education? Some private schools in the United States are swapping traditional teacher-led classroom lessons for laptops and personalised apps. We speak to pupils and the co-founder of the school network embracing AI-assisted learning.
Also in this edition: We're lifting the lid on online scams around the world. Hear how one woman was conned out of a large sum of money, and an expert tells us what we should be wary of online.
Presenter: Chris Vallance Producer: Tom Quinn
(Image: Rear view of a large group of high school students in a computer lab. They have laptops on their desks. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Hello, I'm Emma Barnett. For most of my career, I've been on live radio, and I love it. |
| 0:13.3 | But I've always wondered, what if we'd had more time? How much deeper does the story go? |
| 0:19.2 | I remember having this very sharp thought that what you do right now, this is it. |
| 0:24.3 | This defines your life. |
| 0:26.0 | I'm ready to talk and ready to listen. |
| 0:28.3 | I'm insulted by how little the medical community is ever bothered with this. |
| 0:33.9 | Ready to talk with me, Emma Barnard, is my new podcast. |
| 0:37.0 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:38.9 | Hello and welcome to TechLife, the program about technology making an impact on your life. |
| 0:44.7 | I'm Chris Valence and this week we're in the classroom to ask if traditional academic lessons |
| 0:49.7 | can be replaced by two hours of intense, AI-driven learning. |
| 0:54.7 | We speak to children and educators at the private school network trying to revolutionise school. |
| 1:01.5 | And we look at the murky world of online scammers. |
| 1:05.2 | A victim of this industrial-scale crime tells us how she lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. |
| 1:11.6 | And we speak to an expert involved in the fight against this global crime. |
| 1:16.6 | People are being locked in a room, sometimes up to a thousand or more, |
| 1:20.6 | who are being forced to scam other people 12 hours a day. |
| 1:24.6 | So it's organized crime nowadays. Well, we start today in the United States and an AI-assisted approach to learning that's been making headlines. |
| 1:53.3 | Janet Champlain has tonight's eye in America. |
| 1:56.9 | They're pioneering education's new frontier. |
| 2:00.8 | Every click, every keystroke at Austin's Alpha School is guided by artificial intelligence. |
... |
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